I felt that IBO had potential early on. Themes of brotherhood (and similar) really appeal to be and the show opened with that in spades. Characters like Mika were especially interesting to me (still are) - he doesn't easily fall into a trope and the way he responded to events around him was simultaneously refreshing but not weird enough to be totally unrelatable. Kudelia wasn't a standout early on, but I felt she had room to grow as a character and was given a fair starting point.
A good chunk of the early dialogue between characters felt natural to me. They weren't just dropping plot points or exposition, it felt like characters actually speaking with each other - their thoughts, what they were feeling, what makes them tick, etc - it felt organic. Some people might think that type of dialogue is boring or pointless because it 'doesn't move the plot forward' or are 'talking about nothing' but I really appreciated it.
However, a lot of places where the potential lied has gone unfulfilled or backwards. Mika and Orga's relationship - why they place so much trust in each other, the history between them - is still a large unknown. I'm not saying the show has to explicitly spell it out for us, the audience. We're not dumb, but it still feels awkward to not be addressed at all up to this point. While Kudelia had room to grow, so far she's just been relegated to "clueless about relationships". That's not especially interesting. Not to mention Atra's inclusion seems to be mostly just for a crappy love triangle angle, barring her recent events which are largely the result of unbelievable storytelling.The goals of Gjallerhorn are kinda vague and typical still. Not to mention the Human Debris stuff which didn't work on any level.
I wonder if the writer had a general outline of what they wanted this series to be, but didn't need 20-whatever episodes to tell it, so this whole middle section feels like a meandering poorly written awkward spacer to fill time.
EDIT: In short I feel like there are still a few good (maybe great?) characters mixed in with other pretty terrible characters and a throwaway plot so far.
